Grades | How to setup the Gradebook for your course
A grade book contains your grading system, grade calculations, grade scheme, grade items, and view and display options.
This article shows how to:
Where to find the Grade Book Settings
To see the grade book settings of your course, go to the green navigation bar and follow the steps:
- Click on Grades, then
- Click on the Setup Wizard tab
This will open the Grade Setup Wizard homepage, where you can see the Current Grade Book Settings
Please check carefully below the Annotations under each heading and make sure that they match the settings displayed in your course's Grade Book
When the above settings are the same in your course page, then the Grade Book is set up correctly and is ready to be used.
Setting up with Grade Setup Wizard
There are seven steps when setting up the Grade Setup Wizard
In case you think that the above settings are not suitable for your course, please contact the Education Support Service Desk about how to set up a tailor-made grade book.
The grading system determines how the grade items in the grade book contribute to users’ final grades, there are three grading systems
- Select one of the three options:
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Grade components are being determined as a percentage of the final grade's value of 100%. Individual grading components may have any maximum points assigned to them, but their contribution towards the category they belong to and the final grade is the percentage (weight) assigned to them.
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Calculate the final grade by totaling the points users received on grade items. When the max. points assigned to a grade item have to be equal to its contribution to the final grade. Final grades are calculated by adding a user's score on all grade items together and dividing by the sum of the max. points values. The sum of the max. points values for all grade items do not need to equal 100
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Calculate the final grade using a custom formula that lets you set conditions on grade items. Grade items are calculated using the points system, but a formula is used to set conditions around how grade items contribute to the final grade.
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2. Click on Continue
The Formula Grading system is the most commonly used
In this step, it is possible to choose which grade item to release as the Final Grades, under Release,
- Select the Final Grade release:
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To calculate the final grade based on the grading formula setup, it cannot be adjusted (manually) without editing grade item scores or the grading formula |
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Can be useful in situations where the student’s grades are modified before they are released.
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- Click on Continue
Selecting Automatically release final grade will result in publishing the final grade as soon as you enter an individual grade and it will keep being updated every time a new individual grade is entered. This might be rather confusing to the students. You can keep this option disabled and manually release at bulk the final grade when everything is checked.
For the calculation of the final grade, ungraded items can be treated in two different ways:
- Select one of the Ungraded items setting:
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Items that do not have a grade inputted are not counted in the final grade.
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Items that do not have a grade inputted are counted as 0 in the final grade.
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- Click on Auto Update so that the final grades are automatically adjusted when changes are made to grade items or calculation options
- Click on Continue
A grade scheme allows you to organise user's performances on grade items into levels of achievement
On an organisational level, there are several grading schemes:
- Select one of the grading schemes to be set as a default for the partial grades:
- Percentage (%)
- 1-10 numeric grades, with 2 decimal accuracy and a minimum passing score 5.0
- 1-10 numeric grades, with 2 decimal accuracy and a minimum passing score 5.5
- 1-10 numeric grades, with 2 decimal accuracy and no minimum passing score
- Pass / Fail scheme > 5.5 or Selectbox
- WUR-grading 1-10, rounds grades based on the Education and Exam Regulations (EER). This grading scheme is only used for the Final Grade
To learn more about the individual grading schemes click on the Preview button (magnifying glass)
- Click on Continue
For Final Calculated grade make sure you use the WUR grading 1-10 which allow alignment with other international grading systems
This setting controls how many decimals will be displayed to users grading a course. The Users are Course Coordinators, Lecturers, and Teaching Assistants
- Enter the number of decimal places to be displayed, from 0 to 5. By default is set to 2
- Click on Continue
In this step, the grade display settings for students can be adjusted
- Select Grade Details (more than one can be selected):
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Will show the points associated with a grade item depending on the settings of the grading system. When the selected grading system is Weighted, the student will see the weight of a specific grade item |
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Will show the symbol (grade) of the selected Grade Scheme (Step 4) equivalent to the obtained Points grade. In the case of the grade schemes '1-10 (partial grade, 2 decimals)' the grade rounded to 1 decimal will be shown to students. |
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The grade will have a green or red colored background depending on whether it is a passing or failing grade respectively |
- Enter the number of decimal places to display in the student's view
- Enter the number of characters to display in the grades list for text items
- Choose whether you want to display the final grade calculation to students
- Click on Continue
The last step provides a summary of all adjustments made in the grade book if all the information is correct
- Click on Finish
We recommend using the settings as presented in the following figure, as these lead to fewer issues.
Once you have completed the seven steps, you have successfully set up the Grade Book of your course.
How to test the Grade Book settings
To test the Grade Book Settings you can check a specific student's view in the Grade Book. Go to the green navigation bar:
- Click on Grades
- Click on the arrow next to one of the students name
- Click on Preview
This will open a pop-up window that shows the Grades view for this student, considering the settings of the course.
Now you know how to setup the Gradebook for your course in Brightspace!
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